The present disclosure relates to image forming apparatuses such as copying machines, printers and facsimile machines.
There are some image forming apparatuses in which an electrostatic latent image is formed on an image carrying member such as a photoconductor drum, the electrostatic latent image is developed with toner and the developed toner image is transferred to a predetermined sheet member. In the image forming apparatus as described above, in general, the photoconductor drum and its peripheral devices are formed into one or a plurality of units, they are designed to be freely removed and thus a maintenance operation, an assembly operation and the like are efficiently performed.
For example, an image forming apparatus is known in which a process unit including a photoconductor stored within a housing and a plurality of development units that develop the latent image of the photoconductor is configured such that the process unit can be removed in a direction intersecting the direction in which recording paper is transported. In this image forming apparatus, the entire process unit including the photoconductor and the development units is removed from the apparatus main body, and thereafter each of the development units can be removed and inserted.
Incidentally, in recent years, medium-sized and large-sized image forming apparatuses have been widely used in general offices, and general users may perform a unit replacement operation. However, in the conventional technology described above, when the development unit needs to be replaced due to the life of the product or a failure, it is necessary to perform a replacement operation in the following replacement order: the entire process unit including the photoconductor drum is first removed, and thereafter the development unit is removed and inserted.
Hence, when an operator who is not familiar with the configuration of the apparatus performs the replacement operation, the operator is confused with which unit needs to be first removed in order to replace a specific unit. As described above, in the maintenance and the operation of dealing with the failure that have been conventionally performed, the unit replacement operation is bothersome, and this disadvantageously causes an increase in downtime, the expansion of an operating area and the like.
The present disclosure is made in view of the foregoing problem; an object of the present disclosure is to provide an image forming apparatus that can easily and efficiently perform a unit replacement operation.